AIBU about unequal inheritance

[ShootingStarsRacingCars]

My mum and dad divorced when me and my brother were 12 and 10. My father went on to have 2 daughters with a woman he married a few years later. We didn’t see that much of our dad after that, just some weekends and a week in summer. As an adult I’ve seen him about 4 times a year.

He got divorced from his wife and apparently seen his other daughters about as much as he saw me. I’ve had no contact with his other daughters since I was about 35. No fallout, just nothing in common and a father who wasn’t exactly family focused.

My dad died recently. In his will he has left almost everything to me and my brother with only a small amount to his other daughters. I have no idea why as when I did see him, we never really spoke about them very much. His daughters have asked me and my brother if we will share our inheritance with them. We have said no, they’re basically strangers. I’m presuming there must have been some trouble between them and my father for him not to leave them anything. They are threatening ‘legal action’. We have had legal advice and the will is fine so they have no case.

We aren’t sharing but I’m curious as to what others would do or think of this situation. Do you think we are being unreasonable? I can’t imagine not leaving my estate equally to my children but who knows what was going on his mind or relationships. If my brother hadn’t been left the same as me, I’d have shared with him.

By making up stories I mean starting to speculate that maybe theyve received and wasted money in the past. There's no evidence of this - or of anything really.

And no, I was the OP I'm this scenario (only my dad wanted to leave everything to his second family and ignore his first). Luckily neither of us felt "honouring my father's wishes" was as important as being fair. Nor did we think the child support he'd paid to her mother 50 years ago counted as inheritance which was how he viewed it.
That said, I am close to my sister which is not the same as the OPs case.

This 👍
It's not an old will 2019 he had his reasons, those are his wishes.

I agree! He made the will in 2019 so has had plenty of time to change it, if he wanted to.
Wills are written as a last request and should be honoured or what’s the point of them?

But your father has given it to people who he hardly knew - by your account. And he most certainly didn’t know your children.
You can justify it all you want, but clearly you are questioning your decision or you wouldn’t have come on here asking about it would you?

I would guess something like this. If he had two divorces and your mother is wealthy then he may feel like his second split was more financially damaging for him and have lingering anger over it. His younger daughters are associated with his second wife and part of HER (he obviously doesn't feel much closeness to any of his children) not part of HIM.

Also as the more recent devorce of the two the resentment may feel more raw.

I remember my father reacted a bit like this. He was a wealthy business man and had to give my mother both the house and a large lump sum as well as child maintenance for three kids.

He would never pay for anything for me, even a coffee even as a poor adult student as 'shouldn't your mother pay' .

I would get legal advice from someone else, it sounds like you've been told the wrong thing. If they are his biological daughters then they very much have a claim to his estate and there any many instances of this being successful in court.

Not in England 🤷‍♀️ as long as the Will is valid.

But as I mentioned above, if they put in a caveat, you will spend a lot of money in legal fees before you see any inheritance, so keep that in mind. It may be better to try to negotiate with them.

In the country that the dad lived in? I didn’t see OP saying what that country is - so how do you know what the law is there?

The OP has had legal advice from the country her dad lived in. It says this quite clearly in her posts.

It really isn't

This. Plus, even if the law is similar to England and Wales, the sisters would only have a claim if (a) the will isn't valid (it is) or (b) the daughters were financially dependent on him when he died (OP says he didn't have much to do with them as adults either so sounds like that doesn't apply either).

I think I’d feel obliged to even things up a bit, OP — not necessarily split everything completely evenly, but if, say, I’d been left £250,000, and they’d been left £50,000 each, I’d perhaps give them another £50,000 each. That way, I’d feel I was acknowledging the apparent unfairness of the will but still retaining the bulk of my inheritance to help my own DC etc.

Without knowing why he chose to leave his money as he did, though, it’s very hard to say if you’re BU. (If he did it just out of spite, for example, I think you — perhaps — are BU. If he did it because they’d already burned through money he’d previously given them, on the other hand, that makes more sense.) Either way, as you don’t really know them, I can see why you wouldn’t want to split it with them, even if I might do things slightly differently.

My situation is the other way round. We are my dad's second family, and he intends to leave his estate (at the moment that is in cash form, but he may buy a [modest] house with it at some point, as he doesn't currently own one) to us, not his first lot of children. He didn't see them much after leaving; he says their mum wouldn't let him (and then he moved away).

Our half siblings (who we didn't grow up knowing; in fact I have only met one of the three of them, once) are significantly older than us. I assume they already inherited from their mum. I believe they all own houses, whereas none of us do.

My mum doesn't have anything substantial to leave the three of us. Just a leasehold retirement flat, which will be more trouble to sell than it's worth, since we will be liable for fees in the meantime.

So I wouldn't share it with them, and I doubt they would ask us to.

She doesn’t need to justify it. It’s her money. It never belonged to her half siblings, and they aren’t owed it.

Have you never been simply curious about how other people would handle a situation, even when you’re confident in your own position?

While this is entirely up to your dad, is it hard to respect a man who can throw away his family so easily? I would be so ashamed of my dad if he behaved this way

I wasn't born then, so I don't have first hand knowledge of the situation. He says he wasn't allowed to see them. Or, if by "throw away" you mean "not leave money to someone you don't have a relationship with" (for whatever reason), I don't agree with that characterisation.

They don't seem interested in seeing him now, and maybe they would even be insulted if he left them money (it might be perceived as trying to make up for not seeing them, when obviously you can't fix that with money).

I have my own issues with his behaviour I do know about, and I didn't say I respect him. But not for the same reasons you seem to be aggravated by.

Not really relevant, these are adult daughters not dependants, this act is specifically aimed at dependants and cases of intestacy, neither of which is relevant to the OP.

He is your dad and you know a lot more about what went one obviously. But some men seem to be able to walk away from their children with little fight. Maybe he did go to court and maybe he only moved away when they were adults.

I agree it is up to him who he leaves his money to - and his older children might have done something as adults that makes him want to severe his relationship with him. You know the back story and what your dad did or didn’t do to maintain the relationship.

I don't know if family court even existed then. This was a long time ago. It was usual for children to stay with their mothers then.

They were adults before I was born.

Hand on heart, based on what you’ve said, I personally would not make any alterations to the distribution stated in the will. These people are clearly nothing more than strangers to you. If it’s legally watertight, I’d sleep soundly as it is. I’m sure your father had his reasons.

It’s not your job to even things up. I absolutely would not share. Their current financial situation is irrelevant.

YANBU. It might be different if you had grown up with them, despite the age gap, and had a relationship with them. I too would instead be prioritising my own children with housing and 3rd level education costs. I would probably feel slightly guilty about the situation, but not enough to change my mind.

We were his children though. He lived with us for years before leaving and then still saw although a lot less often. These women are not my children. I have never lived with them and despite trying to have a relationship with them, they haven’t shown any interest. Even when every message, call and invite was ignored, we still tried to keep in touch for few more years because they were still only young adults and I felt it was more our responsibility as the older ones to try to build a relationship.

I’m not questioning my decision. I have no relationship with these people. As I’ve explained already, I was curious what others would think could make someone not leave an equal share to each child and what others would have done. My thread was prompted by another post I saw yesterday.

Thank you. It is curiosity about how others would see the situation.

I would love to know my father’s reasons for doing what he did but I may never know.

Maybe he knew they will inherit well from their mum and her family?